Auto-audio-dictation (a variation on a running dictation)

This year I have a high-flying Latin III student in a very, very behind Latin II class. If I thought I was going to be able to ask them to level up for him, I'd be integrating him, but they can't, and I can't in good conscience ask him to sit through Latin II again. So instead, I'm making use of flipgrid and seesaw (at the suggestion of the great Ginny Lindzey) - more on those later - to essentially give him the lessons I'm teaching in class, but online.




We've been doing a running dictation. Ben gets stuck at the computer all the time. I want him to be able to run, too. But how to do a running dictation with only one partner?

Technology is an amazing thing, guys.

I happen to have a classroom iPad, which is something that would work beautifully if it were just Ben (which it was the first time), but if your school has a set of laptops, that would be preferable for whole-class. Notate bene: you could have students do this in pairs, as with a traditional running dictation, or you could have them do it individually, which is how I did it this time. The second way lacks the speaking element.

To prepare, I wrote the running dictation. It consisted of about nine sentences. I recorded each of the sentences I wanted them to write down individually in separate files using the free program Audacity. I put them on a flash drive, and then I loaded them each onto different laptops. (this didn't take as much time as it sounds like it did. maybe ten minutes total.) I pulled up itunes and put just the one file on each computer.
I labeled the computer with the first sentence COMPUTER ONE and put it outside my room on a desk.
Down the hall a bit, I labeled the computer with the second sentence on it COMPUTER TWO and put it on a desk, etc., until I had the number of computers necessary for the number of sentences I had. It's important to separate the computers some, because otherwise this causes enormous noise pollution.

I chose to put out two sets of laptops (so I had a total of 18), because I didn't want a gargantuan crowd of kids around a single computer at a given time.

If you have a computer lab near your classroom, that could work for this as well.

You could also use QRs with audio files attached, and I thought about it, but nothing would stop the kids from bringing the audio file back into the classroom with them and relistening to it, which defeats the purpose.

On the day, in class:

If you choose to do this with them individually rather than in pairs:
1. Students take out a sheet of paper and a writing utensil and put it on their desk/in their seat.

2. Students run out to the hallway, where there is a set of laptops. The laptops are labeled with numbers. They should go to computer 1 and listen to the sentence as many times as they need to. Then, they run back to the classroom and write down what they heard.

3. When they feel they've got the sentence fully written, they should bring it to you, where you tell them how many errors they have, so they can go back and listen again. Notate bene: in a regular running dictation, I count spelling errors in this. For this activity, I did not.

3. Once you've okayed the sentence, they should illustrate it.

4. They run to computer 2 and listen to the file, and repeat the process.

At the end, I showed them the text, as I would with a micrologue, and they corrected any spelling errors. We went over the whole text together, circled, and made sure everyone understood.

If you choose to have them do this in pairs:
1. Kids should have partner A and partner B. For the first sentence, partner A will run and listen and then dictate to partner B. For the second sentence, they should switch roles, and so on. All else remains the same.

I like this because it allows the students to run, to move around, as they would with a running dictation, but it creates a different skill - rather than reading and processing, they have to be able to listen, remember, and then transfer information.